


When I Have Your Back

by flinchflower



Series: The 50kinkyways [28]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Shamanism, Tattoos, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-13
Updated: 2011-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:59:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flinchflower/pseuds/flinchflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt #27: Tattooing.  Hunting is a dangerous job, and Sam and Dean look for more protection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Have Your Back

**Author's Note:**

> I borrowed the characters originally so I could use them as a writing exercise, to see how close I could get the characterization. Then I was corrupted by porn. And kink. Here’s a side of kink. This is simply for practice, not publication or profit. I’m in the hole by about 30 grand, if you’d like to seize my debt as punishment. AU in that I refuse to admit the death of John Winchester.

One night they’re up in Canada, a couple hundred miles out of Toronto, and Sam clears his throat. It’s his way of warning Dean that there’s one of _those_ discussions about to happen. Dean just nods, he’s in a pretty good mood, they’re gonna meet up with Dad soon. Sam pushes over a sketch. It’s a celtic knot the size of a fifty-cent piece, and a damned good one. Dean stares at it for a few minutes, tracing the interweaving lines with his eyes, trying to remember the lore, the meaning behind the bends and twists. Protection, that’s for sure, and a hell of a lot of it.

“What is it, Sam? You have another vision?”

“No. Remember the night with the blessing oil,” he asks quietly, remembering along with Dean an edgy night they’d had, where they’d traced the protective symbols onto one another with blessing oil, keeping each other safe.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice is a little hoarse, because the memory still gets to him.

“I want us to get tattoos.”

Dean considers. It isn’t long before he gives a slow nod. “Might take a while to find someone.”

“No. There’s a shaman outside of Toronto – he’ll do them in a ritual circle, with blessing oil – one that I compound. Drumming, even.”

“We can detour,” says Dean. Somehow it feels right.

***

The shaman, Grey Fox Running, is a half-breed with reddish hair – half Algonquin, half Irish. Some combo. He has Dean tarp the Impala, covers her with cedar branches. Then Grey smudges the whole thing down with sage, and makes a little offering of corn and tobacco at an altar in the lee of a cedar tree. Dean is now officially impressed, and Grey gives him a friendly grin.

“She needs it as much as you do, Dean – you should renew the protections on her more often, some of them haven’t been done in years.”

“What?”

“I can see them. Ask your father next week. Then tell him, come to me.”

They hike into the wilds, and Dean’s feeling weirdly nervous. Perversely, every step they take relaxes Sam. It amuses their guide, who eventually ducks into a cave for a moment, comes out with another smudge pot. He cleanses both boys with the smoke, wafting the protective and purifying sage over them, looking them over.

“Wait until dark. If Dean can lead you through the cave without light, I will do this.” With that, he disappears into the cave’s interior. They wait at the entrance, not questioning. Dean would complain, but he’s still impressed by the protections on the car, so he slides an arm around Sam. It isn’t long before they’re kissing, though it doesn’t move beyond that. Neither of them feels the pressing drive for sex that they feel so often, and Sam wonders what it would be like if they could have some peace in their lives.

“Time,” says Dean, his deep voice hushed by the trees, the lichen on the rocks, but still with that note of command that reassures every fiber of Sam’s body that what they are doing is right. Dean doesn’t seem to hesitate, and his baby brother admires the boldness and courage that allows Dean to waltz right through an inky black cave without hesitation. Well, not much hesitation. Dean’s moving slow and careful, and he must be testing the height, because he occasionally reaches back and taps Sam’s side, their old signal for Sam to watch his fool head.

Then there are flickers of light in front of them, widening into a room so deep, the fire’s light barely touches it. Grey rises, cleanses all of them. Sam hands him the vial of oil he’s prepared, gets an approving nod. Then they’re both motioned to lay down, either side of an enormous drum.

“It’s not to separate you,” comes the quiet voice. “Touch with your hands if you want, each other, or the drum. Let me know if there’s too much pain. If your mind wanders, let it go – you are safe here.”

They both feel the truth of that, feel the old magic of the cave, and then Grey brings the beater down on the drum, the sound resonating along the walls, through their hearts, their bodies alive with the vibrations. The shaman calls the elements to him, calls to something else that neither boy recognizes, but they feel the power when it comes. Grey shifts, both feel the piercing of the needle, as he switches back and forth between them, line for line. The cave carries the echoes of the drum, never silent, as Grey works. He stops from time to time, to drum or sing for a few minutes, or to just rest his palm on Dean’s back or Sam’s shoulder.

The shaman’s aware the boys aren’t entirely present with him, they’re journeying, so he slows his work to watch over their travels. He pauses at the final protective circle on the tattoos, waiting for them to return to their bodies, and when complete, covers over the new tattoos with salve. The boys knuckles are white, clutching one another as he sings the spirits, the elements to sleep, offering thanks for their presence. Their eyes glitter in the firelight, neither one of them speaks. Grey knows it’s good.

“Were you together in your traveling,” he asks, and the boys say yes, they were, and surprisingly it’s Sam who saw their father clearly. “Good. You tell him to come. I’ll journey for a mark for him, put it on the same place on his back as yours are. You need to tell him, soon, about your bond. He’ll see it, when he journeys.”

The boys are sober. Their big secret, their love for one another, that goes so far beyond what most brothers have. Grey turns each one of the boys, so the other can see the tat on his brother’s back, and the ink seems to glow. He leaves them for a few minutes, and they hold each other, kissing deep, clinging to each other.

“Sam can lead you out, now.” The voice startles them, and Sam just takes a deep breath and heads out, doesn’t leave room for the fear to start. His boldness comforts Dean. The sun is rising, when they emerge. The long hike back to the cabin is silent, comfortable. They uncover the Impala wrapped in that silence, and she feels sweet to Dean, calmer than usual.

“Send John to me. And when Sam dreams of it, come back here, because I’ll teach you.”

“Teach us what?” Dean’s curiosity gets the better of him, as always.

Grey shakes his head. “There are things I can teach you – all of you, but it’s not time. Sam will know when to return.”

Two days later, Dad is skeptical about the story they tell him, until he sees the tats, sees the power.

Two weeks later, Sam has a vision about Dad’s journey, tells Dean about the tattoo of the animal tracks on their father’s back, and the two of them trace the knotwork on one another’s back, and lose themselves in making love. The date on the newspaper he sees in the vision is two months in the future. It’s comforting somehow, and he captures Dean’s tongue with his mouth, and tries to share his comfort in one of the only ways he knows how.


End file.
